Old Habits
by Shipperwolf
Summary: Carol finds bad memories concerning Christmas and Daryl resolves to undo the frown the holiday has set on her face. Caryl, Pre-S3, oneshot.


**Hey guys!**

**Here's a bittersweet, completely _random_ Christmas-inspired thingy for ya'll. **

**I would have had it posted on the day, but good GOD winter colds and sinus infections are a bitch.**

**A Happy Holidays to all of my readers and fellow Caryl fans! Hope you enjoy this little...whatever it is. ^.^**

**I disclaim TWD because Santa failed to give it to me like I ASKED.**

* * *

It was finally getting cold, falling into freezing temps in the late hours of the night. They'd made their way into a small town…he couldn't for the life of him remember the name.

It didn't matter.

First building still intact was their target, a place to duck down and rest up; keep warm.

The glass of the doors was cracked but not busted through. Someone-or several someones-had packed up random junk against one of them in an early attempt to keep out the dead.

From the dry rank of the air inside, it hadn't worked for very long.

Daryl finished sweeping his section and whispered an "all clear".

Glenn and Maggie were the last to make it back to the center, and he didn't even _want_ to consider the reasons why.

They all stood together in the dark middle of a shitty, tiny department store.

Hell, he couldn't even call it _that_.

If the world hadn't ended, maybe it would have become one when it grew up.

But just like every living person that worked inside, the store itself had died.

He met Rick's gaze and nodded in silence. The place was on the edge of the town, and they had plenty of crap to push against the doors, plenty of places to duck down and keep out of sight. It would work, for now.

Rick stepped into the circle they'd made and glanced over at the bulging belly of his wife.

"We're all clear. Let's get settled, get quiet. Stay close. Keep warm."

* * *

He found her in the jewelry section.

It was pitch black in the store, probably closing in on midnight. She held a mini flashlight over the glass displays, and in the dim light around her face he could see her frown.

Daryl had noticed her missing when he woke up to take watch, and during his short patrol of the store he'd convinced himself she had just slipped into the back to pee or something.

He hadn't noticed his painful lip-chewing until he found her and his teeth suddenly stopped.

The look on her face wasn't right. It made him antsy he hated it when he felt that way.

Because the only time he _did_ feel that way was around _her_.

He stood at the edge of the glass counter and his approach caught her attention. The little light flicked over his face before darting away.

"We need to save those. Save the batteries."

She nodded, thin-lipped,

"Right. Sorry."

Maybe it was just the light, but the woman looked pale.

Daryl felt his brow tighten so much that it hurt.

He wasn't up for tip-toeing around her, not anymore.

They'd cut that shit out a month or two back.

With a long step he came to stand next to her, watched as she hit the button on the end of the flashlight handle to cast them into darkness.

"S'wrong?"

Her reply was whispered, reminding him that it was late and everyone else was dozing in the center of the store, not terribly far from them.

"Hershel was on watch earlier, looking over his little calendar?" She waited for him to remember that the old man _was_ trying his damndest to keep up with the dates, to help figure how long Lori had left with the baby. He nodded, hummed.

Reached forward to take the light from her and turn it back on.

Something told him that seeing her face was important.

"He said, by his count, it's almost Christmas. Maybe Christmas Eve, he thinks. He's not a hundred percent sure, but it's his best guess."

He shrugged then, confusion seeping in.

"Yeah?"

She smiled grimly against the light and he suddenly hoped to Christ she wasn't about to start crying over Sophia.

She'd done it when Hershel mentioned Thanksgiving. But sucked it up when their group reminiscing was interrupted by a pack of Walkers.

He remembered the sheen of tears on her face as she started shooting.

"I was just…looking at the rings. I threw mine away, at the farm. No point in holding onto someone like _Ed Peletier_ anymore."

Daryl felt his jaw tighten at the sound her dead husband's name.

There were several times, thinking back, when he wished he'd have stepped forward and knocked the asshole's teeth out, right there in front of Carol and the girl. Just to show them he wasn't invincible….

And to make the fucker feel the pain he put them through.

Softness met his fingers and he felt Carol take the light from his hand, shining it down onto the glittering diamonds below. Only four or five rings were left, the rest clearly stolen by whatever dumbasses thought money would get them anywhere early on. The glass was busted in several places, and a few necklaces lay tangled about the display.

Carol sighed and looked at him.

"I was just thinking back, is all. I never got a diamond, just the band. And these," she reached up to finger one the gold studs in her ear,

"I got these the Christmas after we got married, just before Sophia was born."

Daryl felt his gut flip at the slight hiccup in her voice when she mentioned the girl.

Kept his eyes trained on her nonetheless.

"They were the last pieces of jewelry I ever got from Ed…." Setting the light down against the counter her face was shadowed but he could still make out her fingers reaching up to take the earrings out,

"And I realize I don't even want em'. I guess I just forgot they were there. Old habits, you know."

She set the earrings on the cracked glass and one of them rolled off the side.

Daryl watched her reach up and wipe at her eye. His fingers itched and he leaned forward.

Balled his hands into fists to keep from reaching out to her.

"I guess it really doesn't matter anymore…holidays, I mean. They were just part of material life, you know? We all went out and spent money and pretended it _meant_ something. It doesn't mean anything anymore. Just like money. The tree, the cards, the gifts…" She was smiling but shaking her head as she whispered.

Daryl breathed onto her cheek.

Blinked and drew back when he realized just how close he'd gotten to her face.

He wanted to tell her to stop thinking about such stupid shit, and he wanted to tell her she was wrong about it not meaning anything. He wanted to reach out and snatch the flashlight away and send her to the group to sleep, and he wanted to pull her against his shoulder and let her breathe her memories away into his stinking, filthy shirt.

Instead he sniffed in the silence and flicked the remaining earring off the edge of the counter and into the darkness around them.

"It only means somethin' if you want it to. The presents, too. Don't matter that celebrating the holiday doesn't make any sense now….if you wanted to, you could wake up tomorrow and tell everyone 'Merry Christmas'. Don't let the end of the world fuckin' stop ya."

He felt angry, somehow. Not at her, but at her tears. Holidays probably meant a lot to her at some point, and if wishing their ragtag little family a happy one made her smile, he didn't see any reason for her not to.

Carol shined the light onto his chest and he could see her lips pull up into a small quirk. She wiped her sleeve against her eyes again, stepped closer to him and he froze when her palm landed on the circle of light…

His heart was pounding. And fuck, she could probably feel it.

"I'm….gonna look around for a minute. See if there's anything else we can find in here, some extra blankets or even some baby clothes…" Her voice was questioning and he figured she was asking his permission. He'd told her to turn the damn light off minutes ago, after all.

When her hand slipped from his chest and she looked up at him, he breathed out with an almost painful sigh.

He'd fucking been _holding_ it. Holding his damn breath…..

"Yeah. Just make it quick. And be quiet 'bout it. I'll be on watch for a few more hours anyway."

And at that Carol pulled away, her little beam of light dimming out as she carefully maneuvered further into the darkness of the store.

Daryl watched her shadow for several seconds, listening for anything out of place.

When he caught the flash of light on the other side of the Men's clothing section he knew he'd be able to spot her easily, even from a distance. He made his way back the way he came, toward the front of the store to check the glass doors. The town around them was quiet, but he knew it'd only be as silent as they were.

He spent the next hour hovering around the perimeters, making sure to keep that little white beam of light in sight as much as possible.

* * *

He wondered just how accurate Hershel's calendar really was.

Dawn was breaking when Rick patted his shoulder to wake him up, a silent request to do one more sweep while everyone else slowly got their sleepy heads on straight.

Daryl did a once-over of the store before coming to a stop just a few feet behind the bundled sleeping bag that served as Carol's bed for the night.

He was chewing his lip again, waiting for her to stir awake and find the tiny box he'd left sitting by her head.

He'd never given anyone a gift like this before, much a less a _woman_, but he'd seen them on his watch late that night, after she'd retired from her last-minute clothing-spree with an armful of God-knew-what, and with a thought he wished he hadn't had he snatched them up and set them by her sleeping form just before hitting the sack himself.

Carol was sitting halfway up from the sleeping bag when he saw her head crane down to spot it. A step closer found her smiling as she pulled the lid off the little box and her face turned into confusion.

By the time her eyebrows were scrunching together he was standing just behind her, and her head lifted to look at him, questioning.

"They ain't the same ones. Figured you might wonder. Saw some with some kind of blue gems in em' but they were big and….wouldn't look right. I didn't think." He stumbled for an explanation for the almost-identical pair of gold stud earrings he'd found hiding under a shattered section of the glass counter, and came out wanting to just take the damn things and toss them across the store to join their twins.

His face was hot.

He felt like a fuckin' fool.

But Carol was smiling. Her head was ducked and she was staring down at the earrings, trying to hide her face, but she was smiling.

His tight chest relaxed and he found himself kneeling down, settling onto his haunches to catch her gaze.

He was thankful Lori was still dead asleep nearby when he murmured a quiet "Merry Christmas" to the sleepy-eyed woman in front of him.

Teeth flashed in response and something in him felt energized.

And apparently, so did something in her.

With a flurry of movement Carol was suddenly out of her sleeping bag, rummaging through the bag of clothes she'd taken that night.

Daryl sat silent, strangely nervous, as she crawled her way back to him and held out a folded piece of thick cloth.

With a small smile that seemed to reach her watery eyes she helped him unfold it, and the colors instantly reminded him of something out of the southwest…Arizona or New Mexico…

"I know how you hate sleeves…but you needed something more than those few shirts and that vest of yours to keep you warm. Figured you might like it…"

With a push she slid the poncho over his head, and he found himself huffing against a smile of his own.

"Thought you didn't care for Christmas gifts anymore."

He watched as Carol plucked her new earrings out of their box and began setting them into her ears, looking much more like herself than she had the night before.

She shrugged. Offered him a smirking grin.

"Old habits."


End file.
